Pasuth Thothaveesansuk
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Pasuth Thothaveesansuk
@pasuth.info
PhD candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill studying international history (UN, internationalism, decolonization, pandas)
Also: running, iced coffee
A few interesting aspects from the Yunnan China-Cambodia-Thailand trilateral meeting press release: "China will continue to play a constructive role in facilitating the rebuilding of trust and achieving lasting peace between Cambodia and Thailand in the Asian way." 1/n www.mfa.go.th/en/content/p...
Press Release of China-Cambodia-Thailand Fuxian Meeting (29 December 2025) - กระทรวงการต่างประเทศ
Press Release of China-Cambodia-Thailand Fuxian Meeting (29 December 2025)
www.mfa.go.th
December 30, 2025 at 7:25 AM
China hosting this trilat with Thailand and Cambodia in Yunnan i.e. China’s southern border with Southeast Asia also sends another message: unlike a distant US, this is China’s backyard and through brokering peace it demonstrates its influence as the region’s superpower.
www.scmp.com/news/china/d...
China hosts trilateral talks in bid to cement Thailand-Cambodia truce
Top diplomat Wang Yi to meet Thai and Cambodian counterparts as Beijing seeks to solidify its role as international mediator.
www.scmp.com
December 28, 2025 at 9:19 AM
If you eat Pop-Tarts for winning the Pop-Tarts Bowl, do you file a Form 1040 for winning the TaxSlayer bowl? #gohoos
The University of Virginia has been playing football since 1888. This is the first time the Cavaliers have ever won 11 games in a single season. Heck of a year for Tony Elliott and the Hoos.
December 28, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Really hoping that this ceasefire will last without any additional incursions. Notable that the agreement calls for a maintenance of the military status quo, return to the KL framework + ASEAN, but no mention whatsoever of US role in KL framework or the ceasefire. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
Thailand and Cambodia agree ‘immediate’ ceasefire after weeks of deadly border clashes
Two countries pledge in joint statement to halt all forms of attacks and further troop deployments in long-running dispute over contested territory
www.theguardian.com
December 27, 2025 at 7:43 AM
And this reading, analyzing, and writing takes a lot of time! Not to say that quantitative fields have it easier (it is a different kind of hard work), but in our discipline we have no formula or model to stick our sources into—so much of this just happens in the black box process of human thinking.
I read a bunch of things and I started to think maybe they weren't answering their question completely/correctly, so I formulated a new question and then had to find sources that would help me investigate it. Then I researched and analyzed and produced *new knowledge*---and that's what we ALL do!
December 22, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Apropos absolutely nothing: "the total budget for UNC football balloons last year? $48,733."
The University of Arkansas spent $36,000 on balloons last year. After seeing what they got, we think it was worth every penny.

In FOIAball this week, we EMBRACE THE HOG.

www.foiaball.com/p/college-fo...
December 18, 2025 at 2:03 AM
UNC should maintain these centers because it is the right thing to do, but historians will also note that these centers across the US were founded for national security reasons in order to produce scholars, officers, and policymakers knowledgeable about the world. They weakened a country today.
This is absolutely catastrophic for research in the humanities and social sciences. Not only are these centers crucial sources of the limited research funding we have as grad students, but they have been interdisciplinary intellectual homes for so many of us at UNC. dailytarheel.com/article/a4ee...
UNC cuts all six area studies research centers, effective 2026
As part of the University's plan to make $70 million in budget cuts across the institution, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Nate Knuffman projected that cutting 14 centers and institutes in...
dailytarheel.com
December 18, 2025 at 1:37 AM
CSEEES feels so much like a home that I regularly attend their events and seminars even though I do not speak a Slavic language nor does my research directly focus on the region, but in doing so I got to learn so much from everyone in that community and they have broadened my intellectual horizons.
UNC’s CSEEES was such a bright part of my time at UNC. It not only supported my research, but also felt like home. Such a loss for UNC, its students, and Eastern European and Eurasian studies in the US.
What a time to decide to learn less about the world.

dailytarheel.com/article/univ...
December 18, 2025 at 1:32 AM
This is absolutely catastrophic for research in the humanities and social sciences. Not only are these centers crucial sources of the limited research funding we have as grad students, but they have been interdisciplinary intellectual homes for so many of us at UNC. dailytarheel.com/article/a4ee...
UNC cuts all six area studies research centers, effective 2026
As part of the University's plan to make $70 million in budget cuts across the institution, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Nate Knuffman projected that cutting 14 centers and institutes in...
dailytarheel.com
December 18, 2025 at 12:21 AM
I have long found it interesting that my Europeanist friends seem to all be familiar with Thongchai Winichakul's Siam Mapped (1994) as a major contribution to the history of maps and nationalism and yet the book (as far as I am aware) is known in Thailand at best as an obscure academic text.
'A historical dispute over lines drawn on colonial maps is often used as a pretext for simmering nationalism. The two countries have had what one historian called a “sibling rivalry” for decades, fanned by competing claims to the region’s rich cultural heritage'.
A visual guide to the historical maps and temples at the heart of the Thailand-Cambodia conflict
Border conflict has roots in colonial maps and long-standing ‘sibling rivalry’
www.theguardian.com
December 17, 2025 at 8:16 AM
This is just the end of the loan period, so the pandas going back is not a diplomatic sanction, but China is about to get the best bargaining chip in its negotiations with Japan amidst the worsening of bilateral ties: want new pandas? Better tone down your rhetoric! asia.nikkei.com/life-arts/li...
Japan's last 2 pandas headed to China in January
Tokyo zoo will part with twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei as bilateral relations worsen
asia.nikkei.com
December 16, 2025 at 12:25 AM
All aboard the Democrat comeback train! 🚂
December 15, 2025 at 7:15 AM
With the discourse about the US National Security Strategy this morning, I figured I should familiarize myself with Thailand's National Security Strategy if I want to be able to come up with some educated commentary.

Friends, it is 169 pages long... and yet somehow there is no strategy to show for!
December 5, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Interesting that the new US NSS talks of "denying aggression" in the First Island Chain instead of explicit commitments to "defend" it. Treaty allies mentioned only to demand for more defense spending without assurances. Can you blame Japan or South Korea if they seriously consider nuclearization?
December 5, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Xi invoking US-China cooperation during WW2 to make a point about Taiwan is really salient here especially after he recognized an ROC/KMT veteran at the 80th Anniversary of Victory over Japan celebrations earlier this year. Memory about the War continues to play a big role in East Asian geopolitics.
lol, very different descriptions of the call

www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyxw/...
November 24, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Hey @wmatagm.bsky.social, I appreciate @wmata.com opening early for the marathon today, but the crowd situation needs to be managed better. We had an overflowing platform at Pentagon this morning and now at Rosslyn post-race no one can get into the station, leaving runners standing on tired legs.
October 26, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Here’s to the past eighty years of the hot mess doing its best and perhaps—if we are lucky enough—another eighty more! 🥳🥂🇺🇳
October 24, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Always worth remembering that Thomas Jefferson chose to have these three of his accomplishments listed on his gravestone:
- a list of grievances and declaration of war against a King
- this quoted statute of religious freedom
- the founding of a public, politically independent, secular university
And from Thomas Jefferson:

"We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact [Be it enacted by the General Assembly] that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested,/
Thinking to Founders, Framers, so much against any established religion, representing numerous views & beliefs w/little unity. Thus, examples like Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (1797): "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"🗃️
October 20, 2025 at 4:47 PM
I am glad today turned out to be a day that I can proudly say, "I have worn the honors of Honor. I graduated from Virginia."
UVA says no to the compact
October 17, 2025 at 11:48 PM
We should start a club of people with easy phonetic yet slightly “ethnic” last names that scare the living daylight out of the WASPs somehow. I learned how to pronounce Worcestershire.
“Mamdani” is perfectly phonetic so I’d say these guys must be willfully mispronouncing except mine is perfectly phonetic too and it’s never stopped anyone from going on a dipthong sidequest
October 16, 2025 at 11:47 PM
And just as I thought this whole business could not get any sillier…
October 16, 2025 at 10:42 PM
have people already forgotten about korea this past winter? fun policing was definitely not part of it
not to be trite and live laugh love but also: protest can be fun and antiauthoritarianism can be playful because you’re only going to get the one life—these are the structural conditions in which you find yourself, so why not make joy where you can
October 16, 2025 at 3:20 PM
the triangle’s blog blog of record
if you have any other tips and would like your friendly gang of civic enthusiasts to file foia requests, confirm information with multiple, trusted sources, and/or dig into financial records, reach out. this is our strange hobby and we actually enjoy it quite a lot.
October 9, 2025 at 6:30 PM
PSA: dog owners, if walking/running with your animal in public please hold the leash tightly enough so that it does not dash across you such that the leash threatens to trip an innocent runner just trying to get a workout in not sprain his hamstring three weeks out from a marathon.
October 7, 2025 at 2:48 PM
respect for ranked virginia
October 4, 2025 at 11:15 PM